Esteban Lafuente is Co-Head of Research at the Vienna Institute for Global Studies (VIGS) and Professor of Business at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR). He also serves as Editor of Small Business Economics and Co-Editor-in-Chief of TEC Empresarial. Earlier in his career, he was Senior Researcher at the Catalan Entrepreneurship Observatory (GEM-Catalunya).
His research examines how organizations and territories create value, adapt to change, and foster innovation and safety. His work integrates themes such as organizational behavior, production economics, digitalization, and workplace safety, always with a focus on real-world impact. He has published widely in leading journals including Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Regional Studies, British Journal of Management, Small Business Economics, and Safety Science.Lafuente is also co-author of The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: A Global Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) and the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (Springer, 2018 and 2022), with colleagues Zoltan Acs and László Szerb.